Hubris trumps humility for those who won’t say sorry

WHAT is it about Northern Ireland politicians that the word ‘sorry’ seems to stick in their craws?

A few weeks ago, gatekeeper and acting first minister Arlene Foster made remarks that jarred with many people in Northern Ireland when she referred to the possibility of “rogue” or “renegade” Sinn Féin or SDLP ministers.

Since the furore, the minister has been at pains to invite people to look at the precise wording during her interview.

Ms Foster is a lawyer and technically her use of language was precise if not intemperate.

It seems lost on the minister that the precise wording does not really matter – what does matter is how most people interpret those words.

What many people heard was a throwback remark that was disparaging about nationalist ministers and therefore the nationalist community.

Most politicians in any other part of the world would not have tried to dance on a semantic pinhead to justify the remarks – they would have simply apologised for any misunderstanding, even if they did not want to withdraw them; but not here.

Despite being in government together for nearly eight years Sinn Féin and the DUP seem incapable of establishing the kind of trust needed to govern properly.

Perversely, their respective electorates seem content to put the two parties into leadership positions in the executive to exercise a mutual veto.

They vote to block the other side, not to co-govern. The SDLP and UUP didn’t exactly master the trust element in government either, though their personal relationships were much better.

The abject failure of northern politics comes down to a complete lack of trust.

Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and John O’Dowd of Sinn Féin have all made offensive and unhelpful remarks in the past about “putting manners” on the civil service and the PSNI.

These remarks demonstrated a complete lack of trust with the public sector that neither of the three would repeat today, especially as they drew strong rebukes from trades unions such as Nipsa at the time.

In the past week the SDLP leader Alasdair McDonnell clumsily accused the DUP of “not wanting a Taig about the place” and Sinn Féin leaders of lying and being incapable of telling the truth.

Again, instead of an apology for the use of the offensive word “Taig”, Dr McDonnell issued a statement blaming his outburst on the earlier remarks by the acting first minister Arlene Foster.

The normally affable and thoroughly moderate voice of Alban Maginness didn’t even try to distance himself from the remarks of his leader and instead tried to contextualise them.

A key McDonnell ally told me that his comments would not do him any harm and therein lies part of the problem – a failure to recognise that one of the SDLP’s few remaining raisons d’être is to sound and act as the party best suited to persuading to the Unionist community that there is nothing to fear or feel threatened from an United Ireland.

ILL thought-out words even to an internal audience is going to undermine the party’s credibility to fulfil that role as persuaders.

Conor Murphy of Sinn Féin told the media he was not surprised at Alasdair McDonnell’s remarks about the Sinn Féin leadership but he would not engage in petty name calling – a statesman-like call clearly lost on his party colleague, Alex Maskey who called Dr McDonnell a “bumbling idiot”.

Contrast our politicians’ actions with those of the Irish businessman Johnny Ronan.

Ronan, who once headed one of Ireland’s largest property companies, Treasury Holdings, submitted a superb critique of his experiences with Nama to the Dail banking inquiry last week.

Unfortunately Ronan signed it off with the Nazi labour camp slogan ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’[ “work makes (you) free.”], which unsurprisingly gave offence to many.

Ronan apologised publicly and unequivocally – a valid point he had tried to make about Nama’s wasted potential was nearly lost by the careless use of language.

Obviously politics is a hard trade. And by its very nature it is a blood-letting sport.

The new Labour shadow chancellor John O’Donnell, who is not adverse to the colourful use of language, found that only 24 hours into the job he had to uncharacteristically apologise for words he uttered about the IRA over 10 years ago.

The use of intemperate and inflammatory language damages not just the body politic but society.

Having the humility to say sorry could do a lot for healing in Northern Ireland but our guys seem to prefer hubris to humility.

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